Exercise And Weight Gain

Are Your Exercise Habits Actually Making You Fatter?

Every summer I spend a few weeks on the coast running, hiking, sea kayaking, swimming and getting about double my usual amount of exercise. And still I gain weight.

You’re out in a rancher’s field in Texas and hear thundering hooves. Do you automatically think it’s a herd of zebra coming your way, or just horses?

You wake up with a sore throat and Technicolor snot. Is it Ebola, or perhaps the common cold?

This is an example of Occam’s Razor, which boils down to: The simple answer is usually the correct one. How does this apply to exercise and weight loss? Well, the simple answer is that weight loss is a product of energy balance.

As I showed in my last column, debunking the so-called “calorie myth,” if you’re in a caloric deficit, you’re going to lose weight, and if you’re in a caloric surplus, you’ll gain. Period. Exclamation mark. Mother fudging period again.

So when you hear about exercise, or specific types of exercises (*cough* cardio *cough*) that can cause you to gain weight, it’s not because of adrenal fatigue, or metabolic collapse, or nutrient partitioning, or muscle-fiber conversion or the goddamn Loch Ness Monster. It’s because of food.

Every summer I spend a few weeks on the coast running, hiking, sea kayaking, swimming and getting about double my usual amount of exercise. It’s because I’m on vacation and I have to do something to fill up those extra hours in the day. And still I gain weight. Specifically, I gain fat.

Why? Because food. And beer. I’m on vacation, and I’m eating and drinking like the apocalypse is imminent. All that exercise, about 15 hours a week of it, is not enough to undo the drunken gluttony. My point is: it’s damn near impossible to out-exercise eating and drinking too much.

So when people say that exercise can make you gain weight (and we’re mostly not talking about muscle-building here), it’s because something is going on with the regimen that is leading to an increase in caloric intake. Occam’s Razor, right?

A recent study published in Appetite found that the same exercise could elicit a different post-exercise eating response depending on whether it was described as “endurance” exercise or “fat burning” exercise. Guess which one caused people to eat more afterwards?

This is but one study out of many that have shown an out-of-whack response to exercise. People get some exercise then they eat because they feel like they earned it. And now more studies are showing that the messaging surrounding such exercise can have an even more profound effect: Oh, that was a FAT-BURNING exercise? So I’m a calorie-blasting machine, which means I can inhale three pieces of cheesecake after 20 minutes of Level 3 on the stairclimber!

Yeah, that’s dumb.

It’s also quite common, and to a significant extent it’s because we’ve been lead to believe that exercise is some miracle fat-burner. Coke says it’s not their sugar water that’s the problem, but that you don’t move enough. You’ve been told to refuel with chocolate milk or some other price-inflated “recovery drink.” Certainly you can’t jog more than 20 minutes without Gatorade. We played soccer tonight, so that means victory pints and chicken wings at the pub. Even Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign thinks part of the answer to preventing childhood obesity is partnering the endeavor with restaurants like Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Subway. The reality is that, no matter how much marketing and “healthy options” a restaurant puts forth to make it seem like a wise choice, it’s a helluva lot easier, and less expensive, to prepare healthy and calorie-conscious meals at home. People don’t get lean eating at restaurants.

Exercise is only part of the answer when it comes to weight loss. Without controlling food intake, weight will not be lost (and could be gained) with the integration of an exercise regimen.

And so it’s important to wake the hell up.

By “wake the hell up,” I mean it’s necessary for people to understand just how many calories they’re burning in a day, including with the integration of exercise, as well as how many calories they’re eating in a day. And they need to know that the number on the scale only gets lower (not meant to endorse the use of scales — I ignore them) if you’re eating fewer calories than you burn. Again, this is not a myth.

So, what to do? How to wake up?

Answer: Ditch this reward mentality. The reward mentality is the one that makes you think that because you exercised you get a treat. The math is almost always wrong with such thinking, meaning that you are almost certainly going to consume more calories than you burned off.

Instead, adopt the empowered mentality. Oh, crap. I think I just had an Oprah moment. What I mean is, you need to understand the way exercise can be used as a tool to improve your eating, rather than entitle you to a reward.

As I pointed out in this column, there are myriad ways that exercise can enhance your ability to improve your eating. One way is the improved “executive function” in your brain, which makes you better at impulse control, planning and decision-making, all of which are valuable skills for sticking to a diet. Another is knowing that exercise, especially more intense forms, provides an “alternative reward,” meaning a good sweat is just as mentally rewarding as a hot fudge sundae. What’s more, there is the psychological aspect of seeing food as a source of healthy fuel for exercise endeavors, so it prompts you to make wiser choices and reject continuous indulgence.

Know that there are two paths: the one where you’re clueless and you use exercise as an excuse to run amok with your eating and drinking, and the other where you understand that without dietary control, no amount or variety of exercise will lead to weight loss.

In short: Exercise doesn’t entitle you to a treat; it gives you the power to resist such treats.